


Dear Home Town, I Never Meant to Let You Down

by octoberburns



Category: Original Work
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bilingual Dialogue, Bittersweet Ending, Espionage, F/M, Historical, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of Underage Sex, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tragedy, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberburns/pseuds/octoberburns
Summary: He may not be willing to fight for his country, but he'll damn well fight for his people.





	Dear Home Town, I Never Meant to Let You Down

**Author's Note:**

> See the endnotes for a brief summary of potentially triggering content.
> 
> Hover over French text for a translation.

It has never been in his plans to fight for king and country. He doesn’t even like his country: Canada has never held a special place in his heart, and the whole concept of government has only ever elicited contempt from him. So when war is declared and the posters first go up, he ignores them, just like everyone else.

In Europe the war is raging, the papers say—but war is distant, abstract, too big to be put into thoughts. The war is not the docks where he works to keep his family fed, or the bar he goes to with Théo and Jean-Luc at the end of his shift. The war is not his problem. The war does not affect him.

So he goes on ignoring it, month after month, until suddenly France is overrun and on the run and forced into surrender, and even though Canada may not have mattered much to him, this is _France—_ and he’s a good Acadian boy, born and bred. But his family relies on him, and on the money he earns at the docks, and none of them trust a soldier’s pay to last. And so he keeps ignoring it, albeit more uneasily than before, and more than a year goes by and he’s still keeping his head down—right up until the first local boy comes home in a casket.

And then he breaks. He signs on. It is November 24th, 1941, and Bastien Arsenault is twenty years old. He may not be willing to fight for his country, but he’ll damn well fight for his people.

* * *

When Bastien is seven, his father comes home from the docks in high spirits. At the dinner table he tells them the morning paper said Premier John B. M. Baxter has proposed the new Regulation 32, which will change the laws laid out in the Common Schools Act of 1871. He explains—to his wife, to Jean-Luc and Bastien, to their three younger sisters and one younger brother—that this means the school board will be allowed to start a bilingual program for their largely French-speaking region, to continue teaching children in their native tongue well past the current cut-off year. Jean-Luc, who is in the fourth grade, will be able to continue his schooling missing only one year of French; Bastien, in second grade, may not miss a year at all.

“Ça ne sera pas long,” his father says, tearing bread from the loaf at the centre of the table and dipping it in his soup. _It won’t be long_.

Later, when Regulation 32 is blocked by a strong anglophone opposition, he fills the kitchen with his grief—grief for his culture, for his language, for his children—until he accidentally breaks a plate and his wife banishes him to the backyard to vent his anger more constructively. Bastien helps him, listens to his furious muttering for the next two hours, gathers up the wood his father chops piece by piece and carries it to the woodshed to stack, never says a word.

* * *

Jean-Luc joins up too, of course: he and Jean-Luc have always been inseparable. So does Théo. Mercurial as he is, Bastien can count on him when he needs him.

There are no French-speaking units in New Brunswick, but after the surrender of France, even the Anglophone units were flooded with Acadian volunteers—and since no regiment is ever short of vacancies to fill, they are still taking new recruits to send to the front this year and a half later. The brothers will go to Moncton to join them, with their father’s blessing and a loaf of their mother’s bread. Others have gone already; it is a sadly reduced collection of men on the docks and in the fishing boats when they take their leave on a Monday morning.

The supervisor on the docks is named MacKenzie, and Bastien likes him, for all that he also scorns the man for being an English speaker. The Acadians tease him behind his back, but privately Bastien suspects MacKenzie is not as ignorant of what they say as he pretends to be. He never mentions it, though, or even asks what the fishermen are laughing about, and that earns him respect despite the handicap of his mother tongue.

He is solemn when he shakes their hands that morning, and the usually rowdy dockhands and fishermen show a rare restraint as they bid their goodbyes. MacKenzie tries for a jovial smile, but despite his efforts it looks forced. They have all read the papers; they know what happens on the front.

“Give ‘em hell for us, boys,” he says.

Jean-Luc tips his hat; Bastien just nods. Théo—capricious, captivating, unpredictable Théo—whistles a tune as they walk away.

* * *

Bastien has always been big for his age. At six, he is already as tall as his older brother; at nine, he has surpassed him. By the time he is fifteen, he is bigger and stronger than his father was even at the peak of health—and still growing. His mother scolds him affectionately for stretching out his clothes as she knits him a new sweater, and Bastien just smiles sheepishly and goes back to his schoolwork.

It is because of his size that he is allowed to accompany Jean-Luc, long after an older brother should have stopped tolerating hero worship; but no stranger ever believes that Bastien is two years his junior, and so Jean-Luc is never embarrassed. Bastien is glad of it: he loves Jean-Luc as only a younger brother can, and at six years old would hate to be separated from him. By the time his hero worship fades, they are genuine friends as well as brothers, and so the question of separation is never brought up.

Were Jean-Luc a crueler boy, he could take advantage of his brother’s size and strength, but he knows better than to violate the trust Bastien has placed in him. Instead he teaches him to keep quiet—to let him to do the talking for the both of them—and Bastien complies agreeably: he has always been the soft-spoken type, for all that he looks like he should be a bruiser. He learns, shockingly well, how to blend in to the background, to avoid drawing notice to himself, and he finds he likes it. He learns a surprising amount that way.

As they get older, leaving the schoolyard behind and starting to drift with increasing frequency into the rougher neighbourhoods working class Acadia is known for, other boys are quick to cast them into roles. Jean-Luc, friendly, reliable, lanky and charismatic, is the leader; Bastien is the muscle, the sidekick, the quiet one to watch out for. They’re right, except they’re also wrong: there is a sharp and observant mind hiding behind Bastien’s size and silence, and Jean-Luc knows it—for all his charm and cleverness, he has never learned to read people like Bastien does. He may act as their leader, but that’s only for the others’ benefit: between themselves, they are equals. If Jean-Luc does all the talking, it’s only because it makes a good distraction, and if that’s deception, it’s the only deception he ever engages in.

Bastien is not always so honest. And while Jean-Luc talks, he watches, and listens, and learns exactly where and when to strike, and how, and what to say when he does. A well-placed comment, he knows, can be just as effective as a fist—if not more so. Especially when no one expects anything from him but silence and strength.

* * *

He meets Théo on the docks when he is sixteen years old.

They are both working—or rather, they are both supposed to be working, but Théo has decided to take a smoke break. Bastien is still new and doesn’t recognize him, doesn’t know yet if he’s safe to scold, and so he says nothing, watching this magnetic dark-haired boy out of the corners of his eyes while he moves cargo. Théo catches his gaze and looks back, boldly, not trying to hide it, and after a few back-and-forth minutes of this he breaks into a laugh and waves Bastien over. After hesitating for a moment, Bastien obeys, sitting down next to him.

“C’est quoi ton nom?” Théo asks, offering Bastien a cigarette.

Bastien takes one. “Sébastien Arsenault,” he says. “Tout le monde m’appelle Bastien.”

“Salut, Bastien,” Théo says. His voice is very serious, but his eyes are dancing. “Je m’appelle Théodore Comeau, mais tout le monde m’appelle Théo.”

“Salut, Théo.” Bastien’s reply is careful: it’s been a while since he had to navigate an introduction like this without Jean-Luc to serve as his foil, and he’s not used to doing all the talking himself. And he can tell already that Théo has a changeable nature: it will be hard to get a fix on him.

Théo doesn’t notice his hesitation, or pretends not to. “T’as besoin du feu?” he asks, gesturing at Bastien’s still-unlit cigarette. Bastien nods, puts it to his lips. Théo’s eyes are still laughing. Rather than strike another match, he leans forward, lighting the tip of Bastien’s cigarette off his own. Bastien makes a sound of thanks and blows out the first slow mouthful of smoke, watches the cherry flame bright red on the end of Théo’s cigarette, listens as he starts joking about the other men on the docks. After a few moments he starts to relax, and after a few more he starts to joke back. Théo goes through three cigarettes while they sit in conversation.

MacKenzie finds them then and berates them soundly before sending them back to work. Bastien goes quietly, as he’s apt to, and Théo goes with a laugh. Later, he bumps shoulders with Bastien as they unload another stack of cargo, muttering under his breath in imitation of MacKenzie’s accent, and Bastien has to choke back a grin under the supervisor’s watchful eye. At the end of the day when he and Jean-Luc leave the docks for their usual bar, Théo goes with them, and no matter how he tries later Bastien can never recall if he invited him along or if Théo invited himself. The next morning when he arrives for work, Théo is already there, whistling a lilting tune as he helps the fishermen cast off their boats, and it is only natural for Bastien to fall in beside him.

Bastien asks him once, some months later, why it was that Théo gestured him over to strike up their unlikely friendship. Théo, rather than answer, just leans in once again to light his cigarette off Bastien’s with a smile.

* * *

They are not sent off to the front right away, of course. They are soldiers now, and soldiers need training. All three of them have grown up knowing how to fire a rifle, but there are other things they have to learn—how to work in a unit and follow orders and crawl through the mud on their bellies without jamming up the mechanisms in their weapons. And so they are sent on to Fredericton, to the no. 70 Canadian Army Basic Training Centre, where they are taught how to be soldiers.

Of the three of them, Jean-Luc takes to it best. Bastien is hardly surprised: Théo is brilliant, but he’s too capricious to be inclined to follow orders, and his emotions are never what they should be, and though there’s nothing wrong with Bastien’s performance, he thinks too much to make a good foot soldier. But Jean-Luc is personable and steady and has never been duplicitous, and he works hard and he works well and the drill sergeants like him. With him smoothing the way, the three of them are accepted easily into the ranks of the recruits. They can’t afford not to be: basic training is short and intense, and there’s a lot to master.

Bastien’s natural strength gives him an edge, and he learns quickly—quickly enough that he has the chance to observe the other soldiers as they train. He watches as Jean-Luc helps the man next to him when he falls in the mud, and he watches as Théo takes serious things lightly and light things seriously, his moods as inconstant as the December sun. He watches as a brawny recruit bullies a smaller man, and he watches the victim gather his friends and quietly exact revenge. He watches the drill sergeants’ moods and the shifting alliances among the soldiers and the exchange of small favours everyone employs to get their hands on alcohol and cigarettes and other restricted substances. He learns who to look out for and how to keep them off your back, and who to befriend and how to keep them on your side, and then he carefully insinuates himself into a place where he is trusted by all and noticed by none—a giant among men, quietly fading into the background. He shares his observations with no one: Jean-Luc wouldn’t know what to do with them, and Théo has never needed any help.

Sometimes he catches one of the drill sergeants watching him, and he cannot help but be wary even though he knows he’s done nothing wrong. Jean-Luc says he’s just being paranoid, that they watch everyone, but Théo agrees with him and confesses in private that he thinks they are watching him too. Still, nothing ever comes of it, and so Bastien goes back to his observations, carefully picking out those small hints that give him such insight into each man’s mind. There are a great many variables to weigh in the politics of human interaction.

He also corners the market on cigarettes. That’s just good sense, after all.

* * *

When Bastien is fifteen, his father falls ill.

One day he comes home from the docks with a cough. His wife worries, suggests calling the doctor, but he waves off her concerns and turns in early, saying he’ll be fine in the morning. When he wakes up the next day he seems better, and her fears are soothed, though she insists on doing up his coat for him as he heads out the door. Bastien looks on quietly while he tucks his homework into his bag, and on the way to school he stops at the doctor’s office to tell him his father is suppressing a harsh cough and a trembling weakness. When Michel Arsenault collapses on the docks an hour later, the doctor is on standby.

“You’re very lucky,” he says later, tucking his stethoscope away. “If your son hadn’t warned me, you could have died.”

As it is, Bastien’s father is on bed rest for a month before he has the strength to stand, and it is six months more before he is healthy again. The doctor warns him against going back to work on the docks, saying that the strain of heavy lifting could damage his weakened lungs. In fact, all physical labour, he cautions, should be done in moderation. “Leave the hard labour to your sons,” he says firmly, snapping his bag closed when Michel tries to argue, and that is that.

Jean-Luc has already left school and started working. When Bastien turns sixteen, he joins him.

* * *

He is right after all: the drill sergeants have been watching him.

Basic training is almost complete; they are supposed to be shipped out within two weeks. With eleven days left before they head for the front, two new officers come in to check on the recruits. Most of the soldiers think nothing of it—there has been a steady stream of higher-ups passing through on their way to Halifax ever since they got there—but Bastien knows right away that these men are different. They do not seem quite like soldiers, for some reason. Their eyes are hard in an entirely different way.

“Prévoyant,” Théo murmurs when Bastien mentions it, giving him the word that had been eluding him. _Calculating_. Like Théo. Like himself.

The officers watch the recruits train for two days. Like the drill sergeants, they keep their eyes on him and Théo; unlike the drill sergeants, they notice him looking back. That more than anything tells him something important is happening, and it leaves him more wary than ever.

Nine days before they are due to be shipped out, Bastien is ordered to report to the head office after dinner. Jean-Luc claps him on the back and he goes with his head held high, snapping off a sharp salute when he steps into the room.

“At ease, soldier,” says the man at the desk, and Bastien realizes it’s one of the officers who has been watching him.

“You’re private Sébastien Arsenault,” he says.

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a seat,” he says, and Bastien is staggered for a moment. The man is a major, by the insignias on his uniform; Bastien has never been allowed to sit in an officer’s presence.

The man is a major. He sits.

“Now, I suppose you’re wondering why you’ve been called in here,” the man says. His accent is not local; to Bastien’s inexperienced ear, he sounds like he’s from Manitoba, or possibly Saskatchewan.

“Yes, sir.”

The major smiles, all jovial efficiency. “A couple of months back the government opened up Special Training School 103—a training facility for a top secret branch of the war effort. Now, since it’s still brand shiny new, we’re a little short on trainees, so myself and my colleague have been sent out to recruit from the military. I’m here to offer you a unique position, soldier—ten weeks at 103 and a specialization in England before you go to the front, working to serve your country in a way that precious few others would be capable of.”

Of all the reasons the drill sergeants could have been watching him, Bastien thinks, being marked out for something significant is not the first one he would have expected.

Still, he hesitates—and the major, correctly interpreting his silence, says, “Permission to speak freely, private.”

Bastien takes a deep breath. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m not sure I’m suited to a special assignment,” he says quietly. “I’m an able soldier, but not a good soldier. My brother would do better.”

The man claps his hands together, looking pleased. “Son, I’m not here for a good soldier. I’ve seen your brother on the field, and you’re right, he’s got a natural talent for it—but a man with a natural talent for soldiering wouldn’t last a week in special training. Your brother belongs in the army—if he plays his cards right, he could go far, might make it to corporal before the war’s done. But you—you’ve got other talents.” He sits back, a satisfied look on his face. “Drill sergeants tell me you’ve got all the right people on your side.”

Despite himself, Bastien is intrigued. “They don’t know I know they’ve been watching me,” he says. It is not a question.

The major laughs, a short bark. “No,” he agrees. “Natural soldiers, every one.”

“In that case I accept your offer,” Bastien says. He doesn’t let himself think about what he’s saying. Accepting will mean separation from his brother. It will mean leaving Théo behind. It will mean his chances of ever seeing them again are drastically reduced. But he is not a natural soldier, and no one has ever recognized that in him before. “Ten weeks at Special Training School 103. I’d like to see what this is all about.”

“Excellent,” the major says. He gets to his feet, and so does Bastien. “Pack your bags, private. You’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Bastien says, saluting. “How much am I allowed to tell my brother?”

Bastien thinks he knows the answer already, and from the look in the major’s eye, his guess is correct. “As little as possible, soldier,” he says crisply, and Bastien salutes again.

“Yes, sir.” He hesitates for a moment, not sure if he should say anything—but then, he was given permission to speak freely. “May I ask where I’m bound?”

There is something approving in the major’s eyes, and his mouth twists into a grin. “Yes you may, private,” he says. “You’re bound for Camp X.”

* * *

Bastien is fourteen when he loses his virginity. The girl’s name is Jenny, and she has dark hair and brown eyes and freckles across her nose. At a guess he’d say she is closer to his brother’s age, but by then he has grown tall enough that she laughs when he suggests he could be younger than her. A bit of stubble will go a long way towards making you look more mature, even if it’s gingery blond and barely visible.

He wouldn’t even have taken notice of her if not for Jean-Luc. They are at a fire hall dance, and his brother wants to flirt with the pretty blonde Jenny has linked arms with. Bastien points out two boys at the potluck table who are getting food for themselves and the girls, but Jean-Luc asks her to dance anyway. She is about to accept when one of them comes back and starts an argument.

Bastien backs up his brother, of course; that’s what brothers do, and even if it weren’t, it is obvious to him that the girls are bored, though their dates haven’t noticed yet. He lets Jean-Luc do the yelling while he observes, and what he sees is more than enough to tip the balance in their favour: the boy swaggers aggressively and cuts the girl off every time she tries to defuse the argument, wears clothes that fit too well for him to have come from this working class neighbourhood, hasn’t set foot on the dance floor at all yet all night.

“If you’re so sure she wants to be here with you,” he cuts in, “why do you keep stopping her from saying so?”

His voice is level, but everyone stops talking. The boy’s friend has come back, but even with backup, there aren’t many teenagers stupid enough to take on someone of Bastien’s size. He looks them both over now, the hint of a smirk on his face, and cocks a brow, nodding in the girls’ direction.

“You’re afraid she’s going to prove you wrong—for good reason. She’s bored of you. Do you really think she came to an Acadian dance hall to stay on the arm of a rich boy like you? You’re not even dancing with her. And if you’re not going to, maybe she should leave here with someone who will.”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” one boy snarls, and Bastien laughs openly, baiting him.

“Or what? You’re going to drag your date off and ruin her night?”

Jenny laughs. Both of the boys are seething at him now, furious and embarrassed, but they know better than to start a fight on foreign ground. Bastien smirks wider, shakes his head, rolls his eyes at the girls. When neither of them moves to correct him, the boys sulk out with their tails between their legs.

Jean-Luc grins. He turns to the blonde, offering his hand. “Mademoiselle?”

She giggles, charmed by the French, and puts her hand in his. With a small, secretive smile, Jenny follows her, linking her arm with Bastien’s.

They dance until the fiddlers get tired, long after Jean-Luc and the blonde have already disappeared, and then Jenny pulls him into an empty storeroom and slides her hand into his pants. Bastien is fumbling and unsure, didn’t quite expect this, isn’t certain he’d have asked for it, but she mewls when he presses against her and her hand feels good on his cock, and he fucks her slow and careful up against the wall while she shudders and comes apart around him.

She straightens her dress primly when they’re done, gives him another secret smile and takes his arm, and he opens the door for her and walks her back to the better part of town. He offers to accompany her all the way home, but she doesn’t let him; he thinks she doesn’t want him to see where she lives, and to tell the truth he prefers that himself—these nice houses and fenced yards are nothing like the life he knows. He kisses her cheek and she says goodbye and they never see each other again.

He wanders home alone, knowing he is supposed to feel triumph and excitement, and finds himself instead content with a pleasant indifference.

* * *

Jean-Luc is not pleased to hear that Bastien is leaving, and is even less pleased at how little his brother tells him about it.

“Je t’ai dit, Jean-Luc, j’peux rien te dire,” Bastien says again as he stuffs his clothes into a bag. “C’est top secret, il m’a pas dit grand-chose non plus, sauf qu’il m’offrait un place à une école special. Je pense que je ne serai plus soldat quand c’est finit.” He sighs, relenting a little, and looks up at Jean-Luc. “J’suis désolé.”

Jean-Luc seems to deflate at that. Bastien knows exactly what’s going through his head—they’ve been together for as long as they’ve both been alive and a team for the last fourteen years. But he knows equally that Jean-Luc understands why he’s going, and that there is nothing more they need to say. They have loved each other so long that neither needs to explain.

“Ils ont demandé pour Théo aussi,” Jean-Luc says at last, and though Bastien isn’t exactly surprised it’s still a shock to hear it.

“Il aura dit oui,” Bastien says. There is no question about that. Unlike Bastien, Théo wouldn’t even have hesitated.

“Je sais,” Jean-Luc replies, and he tries for a smile. “Il n’est pas bon comme soldat.”

For a while, the room is silent while Bastien packs; then Jean-Luc stands and crosses to him, hugging him roughly. “Tu vas me manquer, petit frère.”

“Toi aussi,” Bastien says, and his voice is soft and thick with emotion. He tries to smile. “J’te verrai quand la guerre sera finie.”

Jean-Luc grins weakly. “J’espère que c’est une promesse.”

For a moment Bastien is quiet, then he squeezes his brother’s shoulder. “Oui, Jean-Luc,” he says, “c’est une promesse.”

The major drives him and Théo out to the train station the next morning. They are given an envelope with their tickets and instructions in it; Bastien, deciding that he is probably the responsible adult in this scenario, tucks it into his bag. He spends half the train ride napping and the other half watching Théo fleece the other passengers in a game of poker, and when they arrive in Oshawa late that night there is a jeep waiting for them at the station. They are brought to Special Training School 103 and shown their bunks. In the morning, they wake up to learn that they are going to be spies.

Their education as secret agents is even more intense than basic training. They are taught silent killing, weaponry, and hand to hand combat, demolition and sabotage, map reading and Morse code. They are taught new tricks for reading people and how to recruit civilians into a resistance movement. They are taught to avoid notice. They are taught to resist torture.

The instructors, initially skeptical of Bastien due to his impressive size, are astonished at how naturally he takes to it. Théo, of course, positively thrives. Every night they collapse into their bunks, mentally and physically drained.

Ten weeks fly by and in March 1942 they are sent to England for specialized training. Bastien is assigned to undercover resistance work; Théo will be going into sabotage. They bid their goodbyes at the harbour where their ship docks, sharing a last cigarette.

Bastien knows that Théo will not stand for sentiment, so he simply strikes a match and says, “Essaie de ne pas te faire tuer.”

Théo laughs. The sound is sharp and unexpectedly cheerful in the sombre atmosphere of London in wartime, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Toi aussi,” he says.

He lights his cigarette off Bastien’s, for old times’ sake.

* * *

Bastien is dropped into southern France in early summer, under instructions to link up with a local branch of the Résistance. His contact is a man named Laurent Labelle.

Laurent turns out to be in his early thirties, dark-haired and whippet-lean, with green eyes to rival Bastien’s own. He is not so much a spy as a dedicated patriot, and Bastien has never met a better strategist. While he directs sabotage operations and guerrilla warfare across the region, Bastien gets to work on recruitment; he soon takes the lead in espionage activities, making sure everyone who joins them is taught at least the basics. Some learn more: though Laurent himself has no natural inclination towards spywork, some of his brothers do, and Bastien trains them up to Camp X standards.

He finds he fits in well with their group, and over the course of several months he starts to learn about the close-mouthed, close-knit group of brothers who lead this chapter of the Résistance. They are from a nearby town in Provence, though Laurent will not say which—he has a wife and daughters there, and does not want to risk their safety any more than he already does. None of his brothers are married, but they are all equally protective of their sister-in-law and nieces. André plays the fiddle; Pierre hunts; Jacques is so good at poker that he could give even Théo a run for his money. Laurent is not the oldest, though he is their leader—Guillaume prefers the life of second in command, and Marc is back in their hometown, looking after the family and covertly sending out supplies. Once or twice a year, Laurent accompanies Marc’s latest courier back to their hometown to spend a night in secret with his wife.

They get letters occasionally, through roundabout means involving multiple messengers and dead drops known only to the Résistance. Bastien is surprised, after over a year and a half with no contact from home, to get a letter in November of 1943. Its contents are sparse, but he devours them, and is shocked to learn that Jean-Luc has been honourably discharged after artillery fire blew apart his leg. Try as he might to feel guilt for not having been there to prevent it, all he can manage is relief to know that his brother is alive.

Of Théo, there is no news, but they are spies; he did not expect any.

* * *

The night before they ship out from Camp X, Bastien and Théo stay awake talking long into the night. At least, Théo talks; Bastien mostly listens. He suspects that Théo is enjoying this, the last chance he will have to speak openly, so he lets him have it.

Eventually, Théo falls quiet, but Bastien can tell by his breathing that he is not asleep. He waits. Sure enough, his patience is rewarded: after a long silence, out of nowhere Théo says, “Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire après la guerre?”

Lying on his back in the bunk across the room, Bastien shrugs. “Retourner en famille, je suppose. J’ai promis Jean-Luc.”

“Non, c’est pas ce que j’veux dire,” Théo says. “Tu vas continuer comme espion ou quoi?”

Bastien grunts. “Jamais vraiment pensé.”

Théo barely seems to hear his answer. “Moi, oui,” he says. “C’est trop fascinant, être agent secret. Je ne voudrais pas en quitter.”

Later, after Théo has fallen asleep, Bastien lies awake still, thinking. He thinks about the war and about his family; he thinks about the promise he has made his brother, and the people he knows back home. He thinks about the excitement of the training he has already gone through and his interest in the work, of the pride he feels in his skills and the pleasure he gets from knowing that his natural talents are of value to someone. He thinks about whether he is going to survive to have to make the decision. And then he looks over at the bed where his best friend lies sleeping, and he thinks about Théo.

* * *

Laurent visits his wife in January of 1944. In April, he learns that she is pregnant. In June, when Free French commandos parachute into Provence to inform the Résistance of the upcoming Allied invasion, Laurent starts talking about being home in time to see the birth of his son.

The invasion is codenamed Operation Dragoon, and on August 15th a combined force of American and French troops land on the beaches of southern France and begin their advance into occupied territory. The Résistance is with them every step of the way, providing insider information, local guides, and fiercely patriotic fighters.

The attack on Toulon begins on August 20th, and on Marseille not long after. Laurent’s men have slipped into town already before the battle begins; along with the local Résistance, they incite an uprising, and the Allied attack force capitalizes on it to push deep into the urban centre. Soon they are battling street to street, taking Marseille back piecemeal. By the time the Germans surrender on the 28th of August, the French have suffered over 1,800 casualties. In the calm of the ceasefire, Bastien reunites with the men after a week of hard fighting to discover that Laurent was one of them.

He stands with Guillaume on the balcony of their temporary barracks, looking out over the city they helped to liberate as the sun sets on Provence. They are silent, enjoying the first real cigarettes they have had in what seems like months. They do not offer each other consolation; it does not need to be spoken to be felt.

“Il n’a rien regretté,” Guillaume says after a long while. “Il est mort en sachant que son fils serait né dans une France libre.” He pauses for a moment, exhaling smoke, then adds, “Il était souriant.”

It may not be much, but on reflection, Bastien thinks it is enough.

With the liberation of France in March 1945, his mission is done. Before he has the chance to take on a new assignment, the war in Europe is over. He waits in London with the rest of the Canadian soldiers waiting to be sent off, until at last his turn comes. Nearly four years to the day after he left to enlist, Bastien boards a ship bound for home.

* * *

He is astonished to see how much his siblings have grown since he left. Julie is moved out and married now with her first child on the way, Annick is working for a seamstress in town, Alexandre has been on the docks for three years, and Minette, his baby sister, is almost nineteen and has taken over most of the manual labour around the house. They mob him when he walks in the door, and his mother and father are not far behind.

Seeing Jean-Luc is a shock. The leg of his pants, carefully shortened and pinned up by Annick’s hand, brings home to him the reality of his brother’s injury in a way that a letter never could. His right leg is missing from the mid-thigh, and his hip is stiff and twisted; he walks with crutches and there are shrapnel scars up his arm. But despite it all he seems the picture of health, and his face cannot contain his grin as he pushes through his younger siblings to greet Bastien.

“Je t’ai dit que je te reverrai,” Bastien mumbles into his shoulder. Neither of them shows any sign of letting each other go anytime soon.

“J’en doutais pas une seconde,” Jean-Luc replies.

Bastien is surprised to learn that Théo has come home as well, so he goes to the docks to see him. He waves from the shoreline as he approaches; when Théo first spots him he doesn’t seem to recognize him, just staring blankly as he tries to process Bastien’s face, and then his eyes clear and he jumps down from a stack of crates with a happy shout and barrels straight into him. Bastien hugs him tightly; he cannot stop laughing.

They sit down out of the way and Théo lights a cigarette for him. Bastien tells him stories of Laurent and the Résistance—his mission is supposed to be classified, but the war is over now, and it doesn’t seem to matter. Théo shares his own missions as well, but he is vague on the details. He doesn’t like to think about the war.

At last the conversation turns to life since his return. “Qu’est-ce que tu fais ici?” Bastien teases, grinning. “Je pensais que tu allais continuer comme espion.”

All at once, the laughter goes out of Théo’s eyes. “Ça change,” he says, and puts out his cigarette.

MacKenzie—greyer of hair and larger of belly—catches Bastien before he leaves. “I’m glad to see you safe,” he says. He nods towards Théo. “That’s the happiest I’ve seen him since he got back.”

He isn’t happy at all, Bastien wants to say, but instead he just claps the man on the shoulder and says, “It’s good to be home.”

Still—after Provence, the war, his time as a spy, home seems awfully small. When he mentions wanting to move out of his mother’s house, Théo offers to get an apartment with him, so Bastien goes back to work on the docks and they move in together. Sharing space as they are, it immediately becomes apparent how much the war has damaged Théo. Though Bastien has bad dreams himself, they are nothing to Théo’s night terrors, and he is often restless and insomniac and he startles at loud noises. Bastien loses count of the number of times he holds him through the night while his attacks run their course. He makes dinner and picks up the bills when Théo’s job suffers for it, and never lets him think he resents it.

Months go by and nothing changes; if anything, Théo gets worse. He takes to going for walks late at night, and more than once Bastien awakens to him coming home with the dawn. Bastien had heard men talk of shell shock and battle fatigue, but he never imagined it like this, never envisioned the sheer helplessness of being faced with it and unable to make a difference. Desperate, he goes to Jean-Luc, but his brother doesn’t know any better than he does how to make Théo’s suffering easier; the doctor, unaccustomed to treating anything more serious than pneumonia or a broken bone, does not know what to suggest. That night Bastien holds Théo and cries silent tears, turning his face away so his friend can’t see them.

Three days later he arrives on the docks to discover the fisherman dragging Théo’s body from the water. That is the last clear memory he has before everything goes blank for a week. The funeral is miserable and wet and Bastien is numb through all of it—has been numb ever since he saw Théo’s pale corpse laid out on the shore. When it is over he goes home and terminates his lease. He leaves town the next morning. He does not know if he will ever go back.

The police rule it as an accident. Bastien knows better.

* * *

Bastien is sixteen the first time he has a cigarette; he has just started working on the docks, and Jean-Luc takes him out to the bar with the other men to celebrate his first day. The fishermen tease him, pretending that they do not believe that he is younger than his brother, and a young man with warm eyes and an easy smile presses a cigarette into his hands, telling him he’s too grown up not to have started smoking. Bastien just grins and puts it to his lips, and the bartender lights it for him ceremoniously.

He coughs, of course, and they laugh uproariously, but Jean-Luc looks proud and one man buys him a beer, so he supposes it’s all alright.

Later, as he comes back from the bathroom, the same man from before intercepts him in the hallway. He takes the cigarette from Bastien’s mouth and slides a hand down his arm, and Bastien shudders, something hot and untamed flaring up in his belly. The man’s grip is gentle, though his hands are rough, and his stubble scratches as he kisses Bastien’s neck—and when he grinds their hips together, Bastien thinks he might finally understand how Jenny felt, that night in the fire hall storeroom. When he cries out, the other man covers his mouth with his lips and swallows his moans; he tastes like smoke and whisky, and Bastien comes undone.

* * *

After he leaves town, he requests to be reinstated as a spy. The Canadian government is eager for volunteers after what happened in Ottawa with the Gouzenko Affair. They send him to the Soviet Union, and he throws himself into it, wondering with a distant kind of irony how he had ever thought the war would just _end_. He should have known better. He is a spy, just as Théo was. There is no end for men like them.

He finds he gets lost in his work much easier than he did before. It’s nice to have the excuse of a top secret mission—it saves him from having to write home to his family, who he cannot bear talking to, cannot bear loving. He closes himself away and loses track of the months that pass.

He sees things that are far worse than anything he ever experienced during the war, but nothing seems to horrify him anymore. He shuts off his emotions and writes coded reports for his superiors, and they send back messages asking for more information. When his mission is done, there is only the next one, and the next, and the next. When he starts waking up screaming, his guilt finally starts to ease.

Six years have gone by before he knows it. He has stayed on the move for all that time, never giving anyone the time to notice the demons that plague him; it isn’t until December that year that the CIB catches up, when he spends a few nights at a hospital in England and the nurses there witness one of his breakdowns. They tell him to go home for a while and put him on a ship, but when they come into port he cannot bring himself to obey, so he rents a room in Halifax and pretends not to notice New Brunswick. He still doesn’t feel he can face Théo’s death.

It is Jean-Luc who finally breaks him from his years-long fog. He finds out, somehow, where Bastien is living, and makes the trip out by train. Seeing his brother—crippled, scarred, a war veteran, a soldier—yelling up at him from the street when he refuses to answer his door stirs something in him that has not shifted since that morning on the docks. When Jean-Luc screams, “Il ne voudrait pas cela!” Bastien finally breaks down crying.

His father has died in the years that he’s been gone. It is not surprising, but to Bastien, finally raw from the wounds he has been numbing all this time, it is almost too much to bear. Jean-Luc brings him home and Bastien buries his grief in his mother’s arms, immersing himself in domesticity. He does not go back to the docks; there are some things, no matter how he heals, that he will never be able to face.

On April 21st, 1953, he turns thirty-two years old. Rather than go out with Jean-Luc, he walks to the graveyard, letting the mist and rain muffle his senses. He sits by Théo’s graveside for a long time, smoking cigarette after cigarette, confessing everything he has seen and done in the last seven years, telling him his plans: he left to hide, he came back to heal, and now he thinks he will leave again, to live. When he gets down to the last cigarette in his pack, he lights it off the tip of his own and leaves it on the gravestone.

And then he goes home. It’s not too late yet; maybe Jean-Luc will still want to celebrate with him.

* * *

Bastien only kisses Théo once. It is on the ship to England, the night before they are due to dock, and it is done under cover of darkness in the middle of the night. Théo pulls him into a hidden alcove and presses against him fiercely, and his breath is harsh against Bastien’s collar as their hands slide under each other’s clothes.

“Quand la guerre est finie, je t’aimerais,” Bastien whispers, his breath in Théo’s hair.

Théo’s amusement is soft and muffled against Bastien’s throat. “Tu m’aime déjà,” he says, and even in the dark Bastien can tell his eyes are laughing.

“Oui,” says Bastien, and that’s all he needs to say.

**Author's Note:**

> PTSD/suicide: The main character's best friend returns from the war with PTSD. He has difficulty coping with it and little in the way of mental health support. He eventually dies by drowning, which the police believe was an accident but the main character believes was suicide. The main character later also develops PTSD, primarily as a result of dealing with his best friend's death.
> 
> Underage: There is a non-graphic, one-paragraph description of the main character's (fourteen years old) first sexual experience, with a girl (around sixteen). Later there is a second short non-graphic description of a sexual encounter between the main character (sixteen) and a young man of unspecified age (intended to be around nineteen); he is the main character's peer, and not in a position of power over him. Both scenes are consensual.


End file.
